We should make gas taxes part of a car’s purchase price. It would certainly beat Transportation Secretary LaHood’s proposal of a vehicle mileage tax (and is there any stupid idea that Republicans won’t embrace?):

One of the more promising trends I’ve seen is that the various forms of denialism that scientists regularly decry (including those of us here at ScienceBlogs) are starting to be recognized by non-scientists. I don’t know if there’s a direct cause-and-effect here, or if like-minded people are coming up with the same idea (the most…

Patients without healthcare make bad self-diagnoses. I’m shocked. The NY Times has a heartbreaking story about people under 30 who can’t afford healthcare. It’s pretty horrific: juvenile diabetics who have to switch from insulin pumps to injections (which lowers blood sugar control), a woman who went to the emergency room for 46 hours and wound…

This is not the Mad Biologist Or how the Boston Phoenix proves they missed the point of Shepard Fairey’s work (Fairey made the iconic Obama poster). I’ll get to that in a moment, but Sunday, I went to the ICA in Boston to see the Shepard Fairey exhibit. For me, it was a blast from…

…at one point, anyway. It was good to see Pelosi and the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party hold the line against the Blue Dogs. Anyway, here are some science-, health-, and education-related stimulus increases:

ScienceBlogling Dr. Isis has an interesting post about the ethical obligations of junior scientists regarding animal research. Dr. Isis asks two questions: Does a graduate student/postdoc have a moral imperative to report non-compliant research, even in the face of potentially risking one’s career? How does one determine the risk/benefit of such actions? Is there a…

While I’m reasonably happy with the passed version of the Recovery and Reinvestment Act, I’m still having deja vu all over again (to steal Yogi Berra’s phrase) regarding Obama’s attempt at bipartisanship. Virtually every Democrat, regardless if they were liberal or conservative, and a bunch of Democratic-leaning independents that I know, not to mention the…